


Time and Time Again

by mechanicMermaid



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, M/M, hitting u up with those english terms, its told in five year intervals starting when kylo is five, so thats cool, sort of, third person omniscent, you get to see kylo and hux when theyre kids!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 04:22:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6455671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mechanicMermaid/pseuds/mechanicMermaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe Kylo and Hux were destined to be together - they just keep meeting. Or, five times they meet over twenty years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time and Time Again

**Author's Note:**

> so this is my first time writing kylux and im excited idk i liked how the story turned out and i hope you will too. please feel free to leave comments critiquing my writing and and stuff - i love improving and shit

Ben is five years old and very frustrated. He just wants Fruity Pebbles so _badly_ and why won’t mom say yes? You can never have too much sugar he thinks but his mom is old and doesn’t understand that obviously. He is having a monumental break down in the aisle, tugging on his mom’s hand and wailing, but nothing is working and _oh._

There is a ginger boy that is his age. He grabs a box of Fruity Pebbles as if it’s not a huge accomplishment-  because it really is - and plops it into a cart being led by a woman on her cell phone. Ben stares in awe as the boy and his mother leave the aisle, his tiny body leaking with anger and snot.

~

Ben is ten years old and at the river having the time of his life. Uncle Chewie is large and strong and tosses Ben around in the water like it’s nothing. Uncle Luke is there too, as well as his mom. His dad is gone again and he doesn’t know why but he does know that he misses him. It’s fine though because he always comes back.

Ben is giggling and eating a sandwich, having a mini food fight with Uncles Chewie and Luke, all while being chastised by his mom. His skin is burnt and his face hurts from smiling. He looks around him, staring at all of the other families who are in much the same state as his own, laughing and enjoying their Saturday together. Well, not all of the families. There is one sitting under the shade of a tree.

The boy looks to be his age and is terribly pale and terribly ginger. He is not smiling but he is looking around, observing just like Ben. His parents are sat on either side of him, not talking, not even _smiling_ and that’s strange to Ben. The father is taking a phone call and the mother is doing something on her cell phone and the whole situation seems so sad that he wants to walk over there, befriend the ginger boy, and ask to swim with him. He’s about to when the boy looks at him, blue eyes meeting brown. Ben smiles and is completely thrown off guard when the ginger doesn’t smile back - he just stares and looks in the other direction. Ben is filled with such an overwhelming rage at that, he almost doesn’t know how to handle it.

The two boys do not swim together.

~

Ben is fifteen years old and is in the principal’s office, hunched over trying to calm his breathing and clenching his swollen knuckles. He breaths in for five counts and exhales for five counts, just like his therapist taught him, but it does nothing to help the searing rage coursing through his veins. He knows his parents will be mad but that’s fine - he feels rather justified in destroying a classroom and thinks that it’s actually exactly what he needed and his narrow-minded English teacher deserved.

He lets his head fall back against the wall, running through a list of calming things in his head: Uncle Chewie’s roaring laughter, Christmas dinner, Star Wars, his father’s car garage. Nothing helps. Nothing helps and it terrifies him because he’s never been this anguished and he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He fidgets nervously in his seat, wringing his hands and biting his lip, until the door to the office slams open. Ben’s head snaps up, his stomach filling with what some would call butterflies but what he would call a herd of rhinos, but he lets out a sigh of relief - it’s not his parents.

The boy and his father march up to the desk and begin hurriedly pestering the receptionist. Well, the father is. The boy is standing off to the side, surveying the room. Maybe. Ben thinks he looks otherworldly almost and definitely like he doesn’t belong in the school. His pressed slacks and button down are a stark contrast to Ben’s own ratty jeans and Darth Vader shirt and he wonders what the fuck the boy is doing here. He also thinks that the boy looks very familiar but he can’t quite place it.

~

Kylo Ren is twenty years old and he _really_ hates his job. He hates the bright lights and constant loud noises that come with Wal-Mart and, most of all, he hates the customers. It’s not like being a bagboy is a particularly difficult job because it _isn’t_ , Kylo is way too smart to struggle with putting groceries in a fucking bag, but the people are both endless and endlessly annoying. More and more he finds himself hating the very fact that people need food to survive. He hates earning minimum wage to pay his way through college. Recently, he hates most things.

There’s this one guy though, possibly the most beautiful man Kylo has ever laid eyes on, with gloriously pale skin and striking blue eyes. He goes grocery shopping every week, never getting more than a few essentials, and he always ends up at Kylo’s register. The man dresses in a way that is not extravagant but lets everyone know his father has money. Hell, even his jeans are fit perfectly and never wrinkled, his sweater or button down the exact same way. Kylo thinks he’s too good for Wal-Mart.

This man also poses a problem for Kylo, a very serious problem. Their exchanges never go beyond the required phrases they have to use to complete a transaction and it frustrates Kylo to no end because he wants _more._ He wants to learn how to get under the ginger man’s skin, wants to hear his sultry voice in bed at two in the morning, wants to know everything about him, and Kylo is not used to this feeling. It’s an all-consuming feeling that has Kylo excited for Saturday shifts and has him tongue-tied whenever he sees the ginger approaching but that is going to change. Today. Hopefully.

As usual, Kylo’s stomach does an uncomfortable flipping as he sees the ginger man approaching with his weekly bounty. He does the breathing exercises that he learned (what feels like ages ago) when he went to therapy and they help marginally. The man is putting his groceries on the conveyor belt. He’s in front of Kylo. Fuck.

“Hello, how are you?” Good start, Kylo.

“Well, thank you.” His voice is gorgeous.

“I’m Kylo.” Smooth. His voice sounds unnaturally deep and annoyingly scratching, even to his own ears.

A quizzical look. “Hux.”

“... Yeah, well. That’ll be fifty-two dollars, eighty-four cents.” Kylo’s inner-monologue of ‘Why am I like this?’ begins.

The man, Hux (holy shit, his name is so cool), swipes his card, looking up at Kylo as he does it with something like curiosity in his eyes. Their hands brush as Hux grabs his receipt and Kylo can _feel_ himself blushing. He hates absolutely everything about this situation.

“Um, have a good day,” Kylo says meekly, giving up entirely on ever getting the chance to bang this Hux character.

“May I have your number?” Hux asks suddenly.

Kylo definitely stops breathing and is suddenly hyper aware of the people in line behind Hux that are giving them looks. He feels all too large and awkward as he grabs Hux’s receipt back and quickly scribbles his name and phone number on the back of it. Hux smirks at him as he leaves and Kylo is still not breathing.

~

Kylo Ren is twenty-five years old and very scared to be in love. Scratch that, Kylo Ren is scared period. He is scared of his past and his future. He is scared of confronting his family and scared of leaving them alone. He is scared of who he is and who he was and scared that there isn’t a difference, that changing his name and cutting out his family was for nothing because he is still the weak little boy he has always been. He is even more scared because knows that is the truth.

Kylo Ren is hunched in the middle of his and Hux’s bed curled up in a ball sobbing loudly, gross tears and snot streaming down his face. He has been in the same position so long that he’s lightheaded and barely able to support himself. He can’t comprehend what he’s thinking only that there is _so much_ of it and it needs to be gone but it _isn’t_ , it won’t leave and Kylo is lost and scared and doesn’t know what to do.

In the back of his mind, he registers that the door to the apartment opens and shuts. Hux’s keys drop. Hux is running to the room. Hux is in the room, practically leaping onto the bed and grabbing Kylo. He gently coaxes Kylo out of his shell and lays back so they are against the headboard, Kylo’s head buried in Hux’s chest as the man continues to sob and gasp and ramble. Hux never understands what Kylo is saying when this happens, he just knows that he wants it to stop because Kylo doesn’t deserve this.

They two men lay like that, Hux cradling Kylo’s head to his chest, shushing him and whispering sweetly to him as Kylo wails. They lay and lay until, finally, Kylo’s sobbing dies down to loud sniffles and pants and the man tries to regain his ability to breathe. Hux carefully grabs some tissues from his nightstand and Kylo allows him to clean up his face. It truly breaks Hux’s heart because, as insufferable as Kylo can be, Hux loves him to the end of the galaxy, loves him more than Hux knew he was capable of loving someone.

Kylo’s breathing is finally normal and he rests his head against Hux’s chest again. Hux is rubbing calming circles onto the man’s sides, waiting for Kylo to speak first. Kylo takes a shaky breath and then -

“I love you.”


End file.
